10 Movie Henchmen Who Stole Movies From Villains

Tied with The Long Kiss Goodnight as arguably Shane Black's most underrated genre contribution, The Last Boy Scout is a riotously entertaining neo-noir action fusion that paired a post-Die Hard Bruce Willis with Damon Wayans - the former as P.I. (and seemingly disgraced Secret Service agent) Joe Hallenbeck, and the latter as Jimmy Dix, a professional football player whose career was cut short by gambling and drug problems.

Together, after Jimmy's girlfriend Cory (a young Halle Berry) is killed, the pair unearth a shadowy campaign headed up by L.A. Stallions owner Shelly Marcone (Noble Willingham) to legalise sports gambling, redeeming each other in a hail of gunfire and explosions and with Tony Scott's signature style complementing Black's cutthroat dialogue all the way.

The Last Boy Scout is a personal favourite of mine - a uniquely angsty and nihilistic effort from Black, who was going through a rough divorce at the time - and while much of that is indebted to Scott's fantastic, high-contrast direction, it's also because Black's character work shines in every scene. Joe and Jimmy are such a great duo and they are pitted against an eclectic mix of goons, thugs, and gunmen - including one memorable exchange with "the inventor of Scrabble" - but the best has to be Milo, played by Taylor Negron.

With his floppy hair and vindictive streak, Milo slinks around The Last Boy Scout like a cat playing with its prey, getting to fire off memorable dialogue ("apparently there are too many bullets in this gun!") while he attempts to stop Joe and Jimmy's progress. He also gets one of the all-time great henchman deaths, getting clubbed half to death by Hallenbeck, shot half-a-dozen times with machine gun fire, and then collapsing onto helicopter's rotors from the top of a football stadium, after which Joe dances a playful little jig.

You might think it isn't Christmas until Hans Gruber is plunged off the top of Nakatomi Plaza, but for me, it has to be seeing Willis do that little dance, which might legitimately be one of the best images Scott ever produced in his career.